


Your will today/ Didn't burn enough.

by orphan_account



Series: KurRuf section [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Torture, Canon Typical Violence, Chucklevoodoos, Developing Black GHB/Summ, Established Red SummFang, F/M, M/M, Unclear quadranting, as they may need their own warning in this, quadrant vacciliation, rating may go up if it's ever added onto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Been meaning to ask …” he stares aside and asks all serious, both of them panting. He’s looking stranger than usual but Rufioh can’t be too sure. So he glares, bares his teeth in disobedience.“Never the fuck mind.” He drops the other on his ass.He doesn’t know what he wanted to ask. Half of the time not sure what any of these riddles really mean.
Relationships: Grand Highblood/The Summoner (Homestuck), Spinneret Mindfang/The Summoner
Series: KurRuf section [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984525
Kudos: 2





	1. Payback

Fighting clowns isn’t like he had expected it to be the first times. Battlefield gets messy soon as they appear and only through the Empress’ last resort measures do the fuckers agree to keep others alive at all. They come from left and right and above and they all seem to have absolutely no penchant for anything to lose, their eyes empty and waterfalls of ruby shades except for the underlying coldness and bloodlust. They take no prisoners except in the form of blood vials for sick murals.

There’s nobody else here for real support, with the Signless long gone and the overwhelmingness that has always pervaded his life. Still, Summoner wants the wins and has persevered before. He too had nothing to lose when coming into this life and it has been through years of toil that he’s that he is here now,so he will persevere. His reapers can match the clowns in terms of enduring for now, not in strength, but the speed helps. Still, he loses a lot. Still he will take a lot down with him.This he must do.

It’s not the first time he ended up with these complications. He still remembers the sweeps.

It had been a great honor, he had thought. A great honor to serve the Empire and be  _ something  _ instead of nothing for once through their recognition. He had accepted the great mercy offered and swore to serve. He drank the nights away and trained and laughed much younger and still dreamed of a not yet coagulated concept of what freedom could taste like, doing errands and small jobs that used to feel important then.

He had thus no idea who this troll was the first time he spotted him, one night in passing on an errand to spy on the empire’s potential deserters. It’s a risky job, but it’s something they reason only he could do from the high ground with his mutated wings, and it was easy really, too easy. So easy he spent the burning day scouting as far as possible and got the intel too fast and proud of proving himself and now at night veered off the mapped area.

He’s heard tales about this troll he should be  _ weary  _ of that’s made a name for himself in these parts but maybe he’s had a bit too much to drink, hazy with being young and stupid and careless about ranks and who’s who and over being found out, not thinking his life worth much more than he’d been told. 

Looking back it had been naïve, to take such great pride in newly being ranked Cavalreaper in the Empress’s crusade to think this would mean extended protection even here,or anywhere at all. The forestry close to this empty beach, this unfathomable air is said to be haunted.

He saw him not in full clarity then, more the shadow image of a tall purpleblood that is scarred and bleeding rich blood, transfixed mostly by the color for a moment as he recognizes it to be something he rarely if ever will get to see up close again –beautiful and regal in the way they made everyone praise it. A figure of something liminal, forbidden.

He does know that such a place is trifling with beasts outside of their kind eager for fresh flesh, and is not naïve enough to believe he may help this troll, just watches in abject fascination as howlbeasts slowly come in to circle him and push him into a corner and the troll is visibly tense but he doesn’t give way if he’s frightened at all.

He’s never seen someone so high ranking being attacked by something that can make them tango with death, in a way that could make them suffer badly and so watching feels taboo. Feels  _ empowering _ .

He could commune with them, he realizes for a perverse traitorous moment, he could tear this guy to shreds, vent all his frustrations from what he’s had to see of his highers ,the shit he’d taken for being given only menial jobs, how they still keep every one of his close ones down right now and for the previous days of struggles yet knows full well such thoughts would bring him his head on a platter when he just got dealt a better hand for once.

And they seem to need no encouragement. The beasts take the lead on their own and as if on cue they jump. There’s a yell, hisses. There’s a formidable display of power as this troll fights on to push off two of them, takes one by the neck and shoves it hard against the ground. They yelp and it’s a cringeworthy display. Two go to hide. The troll definitely has the upper hand then, and it’s a bit disappointing, how he doesn’t have to worry anymore if this one will survive. One beast remains and lunges hungry forwards. He takes the animal in both hands and crushes his spine with ease, exhaling, hair unruly black mess and red fire eyes peering through. He’s covered in fucking blood.

Rufioh hates this. He’s already fought for the empire and seen a small taste of how they get slaughtered and is still drinking it out in daylights, but the slaughtering of beasts feels like a most base and cruel act. He always avoids this. The instinct and hunger drove them here but there is no ill scheming behind their moves.

He doesn’t know who this troll is still, but this is when he wants to decide for the first time that he hates him in a way most vile, that he is to represent another unnecessary cruelty on this already unnecessary cruel planet, and there is a growing irritation buzzing that starts in him, the beginning of a vendetta burning.

He looks away feeling sick, wings unfolding for flight when he hears the sound of fire and murmuring behind him and his foot dangles slowly before leaping to fly. He stops to listen, and barely makes it out. “Your wicked soul….under Double Death’s Holy mercy… forever lives.” Between pauses .” Even if your will today….’d not burn enough. “ 

The voice is tired, raspy but reverent. He looks back and regrets it. The troll had arranged a rudimentary funerary mound, stones in hand around the beast and is holding some sort of rite of passage before the blood is to be drained. He doesn’t like this feeling of this shared understanding of nature with the cruel stranger one bit. He makes a face and leaves promptly.

It was a horrible time from then onwards, like the event is a catalyst for the fall, seeing as he had been spotted in the area and with growing disdain had to defend himself to stay alive five nights from then, all the while thinking of the unfairness of a world that will break you and then has the mocking audacity to _ pray for your corpse. _

It gets harder signing the forms to enroll in the divisions he’s assigned into and looking out the dusty window pane only for a moment, not to see the  _ rows  _ of those considered unfit to work being dragged in lines for culling that span for streets. To be constantly remind he’s not special,but  _ unnecessary  _ at any given moment. It’s little luxury from then on out, going through the cities and witnessing arrogance after arrogance and incidents of the suffering, the only solace being the remnants of the Signless’s teachings as tomes and necklaces of very few newfound friends and hushed whispers in the barracks and markets corners only in brightest day when no cold is around.

But he makes do, endures, builds a name and a family of sorts, builds an underlying belief that is most dangerous of all in their futures and slowly but surely they seem to gather round. On the docks there is a troll whom he finds unlikely pity in, and she tells him the stories he needed to understand that maybe that future isn’t just dreams, weaves intricate threads over her own destiny.

He sees the same troll again on the field, sweeps to come, too many times for it to be anything but sordid. He’s older now and it’s  _ not the same faction _ he fights for,  _ not the same future _ ,  _ not the same colors _ , unlikely it will be on the same side of the map as often, still a lot of bravado he can use to hold the morale up and yet there is an involuntary chill through his chest at the recognition here. The recognition forms like a cursed dream or fragments of memory.

It is well known that they say The Grand Highblood looks like  _ death  _ incarnate but the way the one before him straightens and then attacks, the practiced swift yet brutal sharp cracks that accompany his paths through the enemy lines are done with presence. He is staggeringly wild and tearing through them, an apparition more than a person.

Those nights there are huge losses, but it is somehow a small solace to find out that the Mirthful Church got sent here unwillingly, by Her Condescencion herself for “ _ clean-up _ ”, to dwindle the numbers of the growing new rebellion. His numbers.

The losses then become an advantage, because even if they suffer now, there are many more hidden and willing to stand up the next time. Still, there is another aspect, and he can’t be too optimistic about the relentlessness of a singular enemy taking down tens of good men and dozens of unpracticed ones over just two battles.

They’ve overcome enemies that seemed unbeatable before and they need to advance. They need to offset this. He confides in his matesprit, candlelight and softness that wouldn’t be expected of her manner of piracy and he finds she can share some light into things once again. Fang points out, her arms like ocean salts and her hair a wiry mess in the confines of the makeshift pillows,

“If Makara is truly such a lone fighter, he’s forfeiting his own chances of survival.”

He ponders and finds her to be right, he got here because they all wanted to be here, and even she surrounds her ships with servants she engages more than he’s seen the other do on the battlefield that time.

He doesn’t tell her he feels guilty for all his men’s deaths, it’s fairly clear from the pitiful lightening up of her deep blue eyes that she  _ knows _ . He doesn’t tell anyone else he’s going out the night after, for this reason, lest they be endangered again.

He’s had missions like this before, allows himself to be a bit cocky yet decides on a route that isn’t main church territory because he isn’t about to be that stupid. They come on patrol sometimes, and there is a chance that Makara will be there. If he’s there, a stealth landing from a medium distance and a well placed shot could get them an advantage. He can end this.

  
  
  


Right there he stands, alone again, spotted from above again but all Rufioh can think of on the way down is how it’s starting to sink in that he didn’t think it through, by the thudding in his pusher and the slightly erratic fluttering his wings take before he lands quiet, as he remembers witnessing the animals and trolls torn apart.  _ He’s gonna kill me _ , there’s traitorous threads of irrational memories in the pan.  _ He’s gonna kill me and tear me to bits and then pray. _

Whether the landing or the fear is enough, it’s enough to alert Makara’s senses. The sound of raucous laughter takes him by surprise and he takes a step back. This isn’t going how he expected it.

“Heaten.” He greets, looking surprised but not at all unpleased. “Some elaborate jest or negociations?” There’s a crooked smile there but the undertone of it not reaching the other’s eyes lets him know they’re both on edge and not so amused. He hates the frailness of his position, so bravado it is. He’s gonna have to fight.

“I came to bring you some death since you keep spreading it around where it’s none of your business”. He bears teeth and sits up straight, feeling in his element for one moment, claws out and trying to look for ways to fly around this.

The mirth disappears completely at the threat. He cocks an eyebrow and drops his head to the wide, wild hair framing his face. “Look around you if you’re not completely fucking  _ blind _ .” He stares,and it makes the air uncomfortable. He’s staring right at the mutant as if trying to gauge out the roots and shapes of his  _ fears _ .

“This not look like I have enough for you?”

He’d known this is forgotten carnival space, known there’s blood on the poles and the old creaky wheels and possibly in the icecream. He’d known and yet.

Then the clown takes deliberate steps to close the space and has Rufioh stuck by a sort of paralysis for a moment, hyperfocused on how different this seems from the way he carries himself through fights, how calculated and clockwork-like he waits for a reply taking him in through cold eyes.

“Why in the motherfuck are you  _ really  _ here?”

The reasons were many that motivated him. Take this guy out and the losses dwindle, there’s more ways to stop the damage to the innocents, it’s a revenge to the image of the lost voice the Sufferer once had because he’d known Makara was involved, to spit back in the face of the Empire he’d hated. Get back on that lost image of undoing the cruelty he keeps seeing. He can’t think of any of those right now. He’s past the point of landing a stealth hit like the initial plan.

“Payback!” he shouts instead,kicking the coldblood as  _ hard  _ in the ribs as he can. The other stumbles, steps back, but he doesn’t lose balance stony as he is. 

He’d thought he’d be more mad, but the clown raises his head and looks straight back up, shrugs off the hit like it was  _ no thing _ and comes forwards in a direct line.

“Petty reasoning, but what did I expect?” he’s fucking glaring and lunges claws first as Rufioh’s wings make for up. He still lands an ugly mess of a scratch trying to hold and pull him down, and one arm bleeding doesn’t make for the best aerial attack.

He’s trying to _ profit off his pain _ , Rufioh realizes and yet slowing him down won’t work seeing as he’s the fastest trained of his fleet. At this he realizes, if he cuts tail now then more than his camp is in danger again out of his own damned fault, and so he won’t let Makara have this out like this. He can’t.

He flies backwards and lands on the other’s back clawing fast and ignoring the burning tears through his arm. He can’t be seen like this when he springs the knife on him, so he holds it steady and slashes fast into the bigger troll’s shoulder. He gets him hissing and it does rattle him. He aims for the neck then, but it’s hard with the other’s stupid fucking hair and the consequent stumbling has them both falling off, shortly after Rufioh claws at him until his left arm’s a mess as well.

“I fucking told you, it’s payback.” He knows he’s trying to be smart . He’s as good as dead now that Makara’s back up and holding him down by the fucking neck as soon as he gets the words out. He’s learning down and breathing cold air over, seems to be looking the damage over, but not for long.

“You wanna be equal then?” He examines how the shorter twitches and screams and lashes at him as he tried to  _ bend and break _ his shoulder off. He feels it the moment it’s about to break and the surge of  _ immense  _ pain shooting through. Then Makara goes down and he sees him going to bend his fingers one by one.

It’s fucking torture, nobody’s even hearing him and he curses having not told them, curses how this is probably coming for them too. Spits incoherent curses between the pain but the other seems almost exasperated, bored until there’s a scream and then crossed by an expression of adoration. He holds him almost fucking gentle as he yells out the pain and doesn’t stop and he needs to  _ get the hell out of here, out of this _ .

He figures Makara’s  _ gonna fucking kill him _ .There’s nothing to say that’s not about to happen when he steps back his eyes hover down at Rufioh between disgust and interest. He’s being looked over, throat as he swallows, his pusher with claws tracing over it. He’s gonna fucking die, and it wasn’t really until now that the realization hits how strong he doesn’t wanna die like this. His legs still work, he wants to make use of them.

“I told you.” he hears that voice up close and it’s deep and eerie in its calmness for someone executing such acts. “There’s enough death in me and all ‘round. I’m in its motherfucking service long as I live and thereafter.” He ends calmly but with fire. Like he’s there but he’s seeing beyond it into a broken future Rufioh still doesn't want a part of. He thinks of all this carnage and his fingers fucking  _ burn  _ and he can’t help but find the religious zeal such a  _ stupid fucking reason. _

He takes a deep breath in, stomps his feet hard to kick at him and whisk himself from under the grip and finds the wings still fucking work, so he wretches himself free. He’s breathing hard, too angry to realize he let him slip out too easily, too focused on how he feels like some sick punchline in this.

“That’s your payback,I suppose. An arm for an arm. How’s that for your fucking equality?” Clown also regains comporture, chuckles like he told some great cosmic joke and stares down at his bleeding frond fondly. It makes Rufioh sick.

He realizes at this point however that Makara is not going to back down. He would have nothing to lose from dying according to his speech and everything to win from Rufioh dying. And Rufioh still has duty.  _ Hell _ ,this troll has too but enmeshed in the madness of the moment the other doesn’t particularly seem to care.

  
  
  
  


He chose then to be wise enough to live another day, absconded for the first time of many to come, sheltered and hidden by the woods nearby. He took winding paths so that nobody would think to trace this to his camps. Convinced itself that this was it then, that this is madness in his enemy’s heart and nothing else even if it goes against the Sufferist teachings. Tells himself nobody who can be that calm while executing this vileness deserves their mercy or consideration as he nurses his fingers back and feels the pain he has to relive again. This is the only way he finds he can hold onto to ease the burdens in the next battle.

He avoids savoring the last of their victories that night with his party in fear that they will see his state, sleeps further away from Fang in the spare places and is afraid of his own poor decisions. He knows these victories are short lived, because Makara wasn’t there these times and he’d been the problem before that,and he’d be back.

And at least that’s a consolation, to know he’s responsible for sparing them for now, buying the time. His dreams are nightmares of being torn apart and swallowed by death as color, similar to the dreams of being culled by the empire of old. It’s humiliating and he thought he was over being tormented by such things.


	2. Most personal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Does include a moment with an OC undergoing a panic attack due to trauma and parental loss. If that's a trigger,might wanna click away.

He does much to avoid clashing on the field or anywhere with the purples for that period, but he has to sail with Fang.

The bad dreams don’t fucking stop, and he tells her.

She says, rolling out dice and pretty crystals that he’s going to have to understand what bothers him. He can’t tell her the whole truth, but he feels he needs to understand as well. She says “Know your enemy, and you will have the upper hand.” And it still feels like she knows something he doesn’t. He kisses her and is somewhat thankful.

Thanks to Mindfang’s ship sailing close to the violets and his younger errands as a trainee there are connections along this world that he has in all parts, and thanks to his soldiers he knows not to disclose much in case of danger.

He goes to understand, back to the beaches, back to this cursed territory, under many robes and a disguise,wings completely bound out of sight and hidden weapons for any needs,horns covered strangely with cloths. He can’t risk being recognized and endangering his connections still, and yet he always feels foolish and careless ending up here after he's greeted by nothing but either colorful carnage or an expanse of  _ empty empty _ nature.

He seeks to understand how it could happen to them to be so detached from suffering enough to inflict it relentlessly. He steers far from church, hides from anything Imperial and for this reason the only place left is this vast nothingness of the quiet oceans and three to four purples he’d seen in passing only throughout the whole escapade.

Far as he can tell, outside of a very lonely vacation it doesn’t seem like he’s going to understand a thing is what he reasons before preparing to fly for the ships.

His hand is grabbed by a strong grip and he feels it dragged back and across something..and it’s so sudden it’s wrong. He retracts his arm as if burned, turns and finds out it was flesh belonging to a face, sees a wriggler that has cut herself and is bleeding dark.

“Shit! The hell?” He’s taken aback.

“You’ve come to kill me haven’t you?” Remembers the confrontation scars on arms and talks of death.

“W-what? I don’t know you!” He defends. She flattens her demeanor. Looks down. Looks disappointed and that’s the oddest thing.

She’s disheveled and young and he judges in about two sweeps at best she’ll be recorded under the church and trained to become another killing fanatical machine. But right now she’s just a pupa. He doesn’t understand.

“What are you doing around here?” He reasons to ask her, rips a piece of cloak and hands it to her to clean up. She just stares at it and frowns, feet sinking down into the sand as she sits.

“What’s the catch?” She eyes him curiously.  _ Guarded _ .

He’s learned two things on the purples for now. For one, underneath this lethargy there seems to lie a sort of resignation and seriousness, a dark coil that swallows. He remembers the highblood’s words on death being all encompassing again and now he also recognizes the paranoia, although more obvious in those he had encountered on the field and this little troll girl.

“Where is everybody?” He chooses not to feed her distrust but he can’t give out any information.

She shrugs, expectant of him somehow as if she doesn’t understand. It’s awkward to converse but he avoids asking for a name as he wouldn’t want to give one back.

When she says nothing and looks positively lost he adds. “ You don’t do church?”

She shrinks a bit,appears visibly embarrassed, more so than by pressing the cloth to stop the bleeding, it’s a mixed sort of feeling. “I have to, but I doubt it’ll make anything  _ better _ . Around my hive they…” she hushedly adds, “drones got the rest. I don’t know what got my lusus but it’s  _ full  _ of death around here and I..” she panics and breaths irregularly in and you think you’ve seen this before but only her eyes softly shift colors to an orange hue. She’s going through loss.

“I just rather go after them right now than wait” she ends and hugs her knees into her chest for comfort.

He understands this girl’s loss. So there are those who don’t adhere to the system on this side either,who don’t want to be senseless, who make sense. He nods to her, ripping at his layers and offering up more of the cloth for her to stop her bleeding wounds.

“I don’t know what to say to make it better,doll, but, I’m only here because I kept going. You’ll find better things.” He doesn’t turn to her, with the cloth ripped it’s impossible to properly hide his horns and he doesn’t want to linger anymore after being found out.

“I’m sorry. I wanted a quick way out.” She rubs at her eyes, calming down, yet still holds herself in in fake comfort. “I thought Angels of Death would smile on us but they..they take everyone. And it’s not my time.” She laughs, cold and small and it feels wrong again she’s not old enough to think like that, he’s getting a bitter taste. “I guess I  _ do  _ do church, stranger.”

It’s not what he expected, he settles to not say one thing, nor turn. But he has his answer as he raises up and waves at her backhandedly and leaves. He thinks he understands it better now, why someone would turn to this way of life.

He muses about it on the way back. It’s not much different than himself, than soldiers of his fleet having had to justify their losses with taking. Maybe Makara wasn’t referring just to the tents back then being deathly overloaded, but to the entire war. He can drink that night with the entire camp and falls asleep a little bit better.

His dreams are still horrendous. And yet he finds he minds the horror less.

  
  
  
  


“That’s still a deranged way of thinking.” Fang spits out when he finally tells her about it. And it’s like cold snapping his mind out of it. “They’re  _ crude _ . They can find other ways to ..cope or entertain themselves.”

There’s a traitorous thought then he’d later be always ashamed of. In that moment he thought of attraction. Hearing Makara say “Have you come here to entertain me?” with clubs out, blood out. The thought that maybe he could drag him away, zero in and take the fight elsewhere, pursue that in the rationalization of minimizing casualties. They have to fight from tomorrow on out again, and he’s almost healing from the worst of it. So right now there’s excitement.

It’s liberating in an odd sense. And anyway, he figures, it’s not like Makara’s gonna figure it out.  _ Deranged _ , Fang had described him. He reminds himself the clown didn’t kill him when he had the chance, clowns are stupid like that,telling by the red glaring back at him from the other’s eyes.

But Makara is in fact, not stupid. It takes ten minutes of frustratingly chasing him around, tearing up a storm for Makara to drop one heavy club down and breathe in deep. And then he raises up straight again and in perfect calm once more narrows his eyes set on Rufioh. “I play  _ no games _ , motherfucker.” He leaves.

Rufioh feels disappointment he isn’t supposed to feel and barely registers it for what it’s becoming as he watches the other a mess from the chase, just turning and leaving and he thinks he wants to fight more. It’s a base instinct and he attributes it to the heat right now,to the morale going on.

He’s disappointed at something he can’t name but passes as heat, as fire, as a reason to challenge the other in every way he can conceive of. The humiliation,he notes,really gets under Makara’s skin and it’s better having him singled out and flying over, uncatchable until the other tires of playing.

He does take note of how when he goes under it stings and through that sting the other finds that death he’s looking for and grows to feel the fire,too. He does take note of how casualties are less on both sides when they dismiss the fight and meet up later to finish the job.

  
  


“There’s trolls out there on your side that have no one. Don’t you clowns take care of your own?” He blurts out one day. 

He doesn’t know why he even asked. Of course they don’t. But what he stands for, living with everyone for sweeps has cemented a different sort of awareness. He’s desperate for change.

Makara’s shoulders tense.  _ Loosen _ . Tense again. “That’s between them and the Messiahs.”

“Fucking help them, _ asshole _ .” He remembers the girl, the looks of abandon on the purples who always attacked them.

“Because your false prophet said so?” He glares at Rufioh and suddenly things aren’t so sane, his teeth are bared and he’s snarling and he’s hit a nerve. He remembers him clawing into his soldiers, remembers viciousness. Still, he gathers himself.

“Because it’s your fucking jurisdiction.” He said, cold as he can. He doesn’t know why he did that. Flies away once more because he’s not about to sit there and let this get _ more complicated _ . He’s going to regret saying that for nights to come regardless.

He’s woken up the next night after switching camp and everyone is alerted. There’s great concern and they tell him the clowns have implemented communications for the first time, have finally taken an interest in coverage and technology which is downright bizarre.

They’re surprised, and it is odd concerning the Grand Highblood’s history of traditionalist and exclusivist behavior when it comes to communications, keeping even important matters only with his priests through a form of mindspeak that is unclear to the populace. That they seem to now be able to intercept messages sent to church areas and broadcast is a huge problem on this end, because they’ve never been extraordinarily  _ united  _ except for certain areas on the maps. He remembers Fang’s words, that the Highblood’s weakness was venturing off  _ alone _ .

He considers how he was the one to give him the idea to reach out to the others. How he fucked himself over for a moment of misplaced confusion and risk taking everyone down with him. How he fucking  _ hates himself _ .

It is at this point that it becomes clear whatever fancy had gone through his head about singling this troll out, _ it has to go _ . He would need to put an end to him. Whatever the interest he’d taken in Makara had been he’d need to forget about it and use his knowledge of the other’s behavior to figure out a way to take him out,and fast.

He can’t do it fast enough. Suddenly there’s a meeting the church has with the Empress, then there’s an impromptu trip to the Psiionic district to search for more “batteries”as they call the exploitative cruelty they exact there on the yellowbloods. He has to run with Fang to gather more forces.

It eats at him but he thinks of ways to kill him when it’s just him. It brings him a different sort of strung out interest, fighting him  _ again and again _ .Thinking of purple running down his claws. Looking at his lance glinting in the moonlight and picturing him impaled. He thinks on how even beasts are  _ fallible  _ and this must hold true even for him.

Ironically,  _ he  _ comes to Rufioh first. He’s off ship and not in an area he’d have expected this and Makara smells like sea salt more than usual, like he’d been out searching the beaches. He curses as he finds he’s once again alone with him, and he could run. But he could fight.

The clown is fucking unreadable and it’s hard for Rufioh to focus when he still has his blood on his pan. He must see it, catastrophic mind powers and whatever the fuck he has that are fabled..as there are suddenly  _ intrusions  _ through his fear and the anger more coarse than when Fang looks into his pusher, but  _ something  _ is there. Rufioh  _ doesn’t give a fuck. The other can know he’s out to get him. _

“Don’t seem in a blissed mood,motherfucker. And here I wanted to thank y---“ He cuts him off to cut into him.

“Save it.” He leaps into the air and pushes him down, lance still not on him but claws and blades at his service now digging close to the other’s chest.

He fights back,of course.

He fights him like he’s one of those goddamned howlbeasts from years past and he thinks instead of afraid now Rufioh finally feels flattered, can feel heat and adrenaline coursing through his system at having his wildness recognized this time.

He smells of salt and sea as well now, looking down at bloodied fronds to find them purpled. Makara raises his to his face, mutant color on them, and stares admiringly, seemingly amused at Rufioh despite the discomfort. “I know, brother. _ Beautiful thing it is _ , blood.”

“Most  _ personal _ .” He makes a slash to the other’s sides and it earns him a yelp. “Most close to a soul as can get formed, Summoner.”

He doesn’t care much for the delirious clown talk, isn’t surprised his title’s known from his factions recent quarrels but he’s never been addressed before directly, and he can’t help but notice the specks of deep purple as he looks at him, matching the streams on his own hands.

He’s grabbed him by the neck cutting off breath, large hands and tight choking grip. He stops and looks questioningly then. Rufioh can barely see him but he hears him clear enough.

“Been meaning to  _ ask  _ …” he stares aside and asks all serious,both of them panting.He’s looking stranger than usual but Rufioh can’t be too sure. So he glares, bares his teeth in disobedience.

“Never the fuck mind.” He drops the other on his ass. He doesn’t know what he wanted to ask. Half of the time not sure what any of these riddles really mean.

He does know however that once again he has failed the killing shot and danger sets in. The other seems to tire of his games faster, so he rubs at his bruised throat and sits up. Makara is oddly shut in himself now, so he takes his chances and his new shame with him and returns fast and away, wings open a bit faster if only to get him further and out.

When he sets foot close to camp he does realize in spite of the resolve that what was lurking through his pan when he got there still wasn’t really that he had craved the other’s death, but rather his blood on his hands.

His gut responds to this with unadulterated excitement, clearing up that he did want to put his hands on Makara but not kill him and this brings a sharp knife awareness to that which goes against duty, which  _ hurts _ . He doesn’t fully comprehend it, himself. And he doesn’t sleep well again, unable to sort himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OC lil troll girl's name is Semora. Little detail that I'm not sure anyone'd care for but I grew fond of her writing this.Three cheers for Semora!


	3. Awfully unfunny

From there on out, outside of the field where they have to see the other in an expanded avoidance that spans mutually whenever possible and the hurt is dished out mutually whenever necessary, it’s him seeking Rufioh out, looking for him.

He seems mighty fucking amused to see him, and royally fucking pissed when he doesn’t and he wishes it’d have been the other way around.

It’s not like they get much of a talk about it until much later. When Makara tears into the wings two cycles afterwards and that’s a new low, to have Rufioh fall and hurt and sting like this. He gets him on the ground and Rufioh keeps thinking he’s done for in those encounters but that never seems to be it. He stares expectantly instead of striking… it’s freaking awkward,  _ disconcerting _ .

“By all means I could  _ end  _ you.” He breaks the stupid silence first, has the pretention to act like that explains anything. “But I found, I don’t  _ want  _ to.” He’s not looking at him, on the floor of the forest and there are stars cloaking this memory. Not even when Rufioh sits up and checks injuries ,not trusting him enough to lay here for dead.

“Why do you heretics cling so badly to change?”

This is not the conversation he wants to have here,or ever, but the blood loss and exhaustion is making him feel dizzy, and he’s tired and it all feels like some joke.

“Why not…? This system fucks everyone.” An obvious enough statement, he finds. He must be dreaming already because Makara actually nods at him.

“That it does.”

He has him  _ curious _ , so he decides to spite him back.

“Why is it that your church serves the Empress. You guys too cowardly to step out her heels?”

He can tell that insulting the other’s family concepts sits heavy with him because he’s issued a warning look ,but then there’s just a proud, continuous laugh.

“Motherfucker.My ninjas are the  _ bravest  _ to be received in the Carnival come. They’d fight till Death doubles over.” Rufioh’s seen it up close so many times, so he keeps tight lipped, he can’t dispute any of that.

“It’s rather that I find heretic hypocrysies  _ unfuckingpalatable _ .” He adds.

Now he’s fucking insulted.  _ “Up yours _ .” He sais,mostly coherently as he groans slowly bleeding through his back.

He doesn’t pay this any mind, keeps going.

“ _ Who _ and _ what in the fuck _ are you going to replace this system with once you change it, Summoner? Don’t give me none of that benevolent ruler  _ bullshit  _ cause I’ve lived through enough trolls to have seen what we’re hatched like. I’ve no faith in the Signless’s hypocritical crusades. You motherfuckers gonna bring someone who talks as though they pity the whole of us and has no backbone to hold it again?”

They  _ did  _ that.The reminder burns to Rufioh, to have the strongest figure of liberation they’d achieved and they did that to him. He was there, he remembers, cringing. Makara was there, the execution is imprinted as a  _ catalyst  _ for all he has done for the past sweeps. He doesn’t want to listen to this.

“The Carnival of Death is tied not to the Empress, although her efforts to conquer bring us closer to the  _ prophesized end _ . Neither is it tied to your lot. The esoterics of it are matters personal-like to holy few. And we serve a concept bigger than the spectrum. Higher than fucking anybody.” His eyes spark preaching fire, and he’s been looking beyond the other’s bleeding form, beyond the trees.

“Why would anyone want to serve that kind of an end, clownfuck? Your lot dies, too, you know.” He flinches a bit as if your rejection of his faith could hurt his very being, but then states matter of factly.

“Holiest truth I could figure, harsh as it be. World’s a cold place regardless.” He looks up at the sky and it’s a picture of calm and dark.

“You’re  _ fucked up _ , Makara.”He thinks distantly he can picture all of them dying a most pitiful death.

The other laughs, as usual loud and boisterous but longer now, his eyes light up at him and Rufioh’s about to pass out from blood loss. “ Yeah,I  _ do  _ be that way.” He says, too soft. And gives him a look almost  _ tenderlike _ , last thing he sees before blacking out the world.

He doesn’t see anyone when he comes to. There is still a searing pain in his back but he’s still alive. He’s still alive.  _ Again _ . He’s certain he’s gotten into more than he can bargain for.

  
  
  
  


They’re purely suicidal. He informs his camps about the clowns because  _ that is the news _ . He doesn’t inform them that their cheering and jabs and laughs don’t quite reach him right now, that he can’t help but to keep thinking it’s a shame how stupid Makara’s gonna die one day and carry his stupid doomsday squad as well as countless of innocents into perfectly avoidable terror, the idiot. And that it’s downright  _ pitif--- _ .He tries to stay  _ angry  _ about it, lest his resolve waver.

He’s busy on the left front, he’s busy with official business. It’s for the best, really. He doesn’t want to see him right now, not for a fight and not for a chat.

  
  
  
  


“Took me a while to find you..” He wakes up to him on the outskirts of his camp in broad nightlight. That means he’d run through some rebels, means Rufioh’s gonna find his men’s bodies because of him and there could be more.

He smells like blood again already. He hates this. He looks him up and down terrified for it not to be anyone he knows around here, lucky to notice the blood is maroon and it’s not the ones he has closest. Still, he looks and sounds confrontational.

If this is some sort of sick plot to take out his camp and have him watch Rufioh’ll have none of it. He’s got a whistle on him, looks Makara in the eye and warns him he’s going to set everyone he can  _ on him _ at any moment and the other doesn’t even seem to care. Something glows bright purple for a moment and his head is goddamn bright right after and it all hurts _ so bad. _

He can’t see anything anymore but tension lines and everything turns sharp. He hears a voice multiply like it’s some fucked up  _ nightmare _ .

**_“Be the fuck quiet. Been meaning to ask you before, for all your suicidal courage, why the interest in me?_ ** **”** It wouldn’t have been something he wants to answer, much less like this, in this awful pan-ache of a thing. He can’t articulate words even, and it seems to make the damn voice go on stronger.

_ “ _ **_Motherfucker can’t help but feel like you’re flirting at me?”_ ** Fuck, everything feels too sharp and negatively overstimulated.

He can’t remember when it started either. On the outskirts when he was very young with the beastly prayers, in the nuance of culture or the understanding of hopelessness. The memories bleed into a nightmarish tone and his former fears turn into screaming inside his pan. The pity that the other’s going to die resurfaces. He feels intruded upon, feels like the other’s there watching this. And then it’s over.

“So I was right..” is the last thing he hears before he opens his eyes to catch his breath. He’s down on the floor- how did he get there? What just happened? Feels foggy. _ Fucking ow _ . He’s having the other smirking down at him.

“Sorry,motherfucker. But since you weren’t going to up and clarify. I have my ways. “ The asshole smirks. His head is reeling.

He lifts Rufioh up and kisses him strong and fast. It’s there and it’s a heavy press and his instincts are screaming  _ too fucking clos _ e, itching for his weapon and then the next moment the pressure of him is gone. He’d pressed two long fingers on Rufioh’s mouth to promptly silence him, stopping the sound before he realized these were bloodied,too. He catches the reaper in a fear again, afraid this could be his comrades’ but it’s still that same purple _.  _

_ “Blood. Personal. Closest to soul.” _ rings again in his pan and he wants to blame it on the mindfuck but he licks his lips still and tastes it nevertheless because he wants to. 

Makara looks back at him like he’s become part of his religion now and he doesn’t know where to go from here.

And then he kisses him again even stronger, the sharpness of it mixed in with the soft. It’s that fucked up form of adoration again, a type of fire he hasn’t tamed before, a wild thing he’s still learning to work his summons around. He indulges for a moment because he did want  _ this _ , it’s pleasant and heated and he unconsciously grabs tighter. Fuck,it tastes of paint and smells like _ the sea and rich earth _ all the same in only a moment and he openes his eyes to see himself reflected in that deep purple. It all bleeds a more familiar type of red inside his pusher. He remembers Aranea and it snaps his eyes open wider.

He can’t fucking _ do this _ to Aranea. He tries to keep this well and black then, scratches and bites but the other just  _ pulls  _ his arms in and it’s too late. He grabs him for all his formidable size in a firm yet not strong enough to tear manner and pulls him in flush.

Rufioh stops him. “I can’t. I can’t do this..” He expects him to not give a shit and for him to have to try harder after the clown just invaded his damn head. But he backs off. He actually backs off and surprises him again,the  _ capricious fuck _ . He wants to tell him  _ something _ ,  _ anything  _ but doesn’t know where to start.

Kurloz starts for him.

“You’re in damn luck. Killing you would be awfully unfunny once again.” He backhands him hard, so hard his skull fucking rattles again. It’s obvious he’s upset outside of the usual quota of violence. He’s speaking low and whisperlike not only for the sound now, not looking at the other like he doesn’t want to acknowledge he’s there anymore.

Rufioh thinks his nose may be bleeding now. He can guess he hurt the other more, and he wishes it’d been purely physical. He’s let go of completely and he can just stare as the other goes away slow, stealthy as he came by.

He should’ve started with  _ sorry _ , but what good is that when you’ve set to kill one another  _ anyway _ . He gets up on his feet and blows the whistle on him fast. And he can see  _ exactly  _ when Makara turns, surprised and  _ betrayed  _ and for a split second after it’s pure  _ fury _ , then he freezes the expression into something more neutral and goes.

Summoner calls his back up in, and he’s going to bury this just like he’d said he’d wanted and bring the Highblood the desired death just like he first promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it's anyhow hard to comprehends GH's point of view throughout this it evolves from A) I'm amused at your attempts to kill me into B) You're threatening me but game on, C) Are you into me? (bcs I kind of vibe & kind of am???) and at the end into D) You son of a bitch.  
> This was an absolute treat to write y'all. Hope you enjoyed.

**Author's Note:**

> I was starving for content. Here is some content. Boy do I hope it's well received despite being dished out without all the needed editing.


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